


Rain

by drelfina



Category: Naruto
Genre: Founders Era, M/M, Mutual unrequited, OR IS IT, except for the almost hopeful ending, introspective, kind of melancholy/sad, rain everywhere, rain on your FACE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:35:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22880380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drelfina/pseuds/drelfina
Summary: It rains more often in Konoha than it used to.Madara's always liked rain.
Relationships: Senju Tobirama/Uchiha Madara
Comments: 19
Kudos: 108





	Rain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [evocates](https://archiveofourown.org/users/evocates/gifts).



It was raining by the barest of definitions. The faintest of rain misting the air; really if one went outside it would barely dampen hair.

Tobirama sat by the window, looking out to the path. He could taste the mist on the eddy of a breeze; thanks to the forests that anija had encouraged to grow, it was raining more in the village than it had before. 

He curled his fingers around his teacup, and didn't think about walking in the rain. Anija didn't like him wandering out there, getting soaking wet, despite the fact it took only a moment's thought to be dry again. But Anija didn't like him doing it, it rubbed his suiton nature into the Uchiha's faces. Made it _obvious_.

Obvious to what, he'd asked, but Hashirama had not answered.

So he sat indoors, looking out into the misty rain.

He didn't need to be outside, however; he could feel whoever was outside, feel them walk through the rain, the fine mist like tiny pinpoints of warmth and changing surface tension.

Outside, an inuzuka ran by, her dog by her side. Chasing a puppy.

He couldn't tell colour of course, but he could make out features, wiry curly fur, a broken nose. Medium height.

Further down the street, he didn't need to extend his sensing, just feeling the rain gently flowing, almost as light as dust...

And the rain settled in fine tiny diamonds in soft thick hair, misted against fine aristocratic features, clung to long eyelashes.

He didn't need to try to sense the man's chakra signature.

He knew who he was. He could follow him down the street away towards the hokage tower close as a kiss, yet too far away to touch.

The clouds dispersed with the wind, and the sun came out; Tobirama closed his eyes as the mist dried up and Madara faded from him.

He drank his tea. It had gone cold.

* * *

He had always liked the rain. It always tasted sweet, because fire country was constantly hot but for the wet monsoons. It plastered hair down his brother's face, made mud splash up his calves as he ran, dewed cool and delicate in dawn.

It rained more now, in this new village, cool where his heart choked hot, when his breath burned too much, sometimes, thinking of a brother who would never laugh in the rain again, when he looked and saw too pale hair over too narrow red eyes.

The sight of silver and red burned the way navy and red did not, and it only really was cooled when it rained, and Madara would stand, out in the rain, at the foot of the Hokage's Tower, feeling it on his face, feeling water run down his face.

He'd let rain trail wet and chilled down his cheeks, curving over the sweep of his jaw and into the line of his hair, sweet as a kiss, ephemeral as a sigh.

But he couldn't do that all day; the rain would eventually end, and there was always more work to do in a Village that wasn't his. So when the sun came out, he would go into the Hokage's tower, only the lingering damp hidden in his nape remaining evidence of the rain.

* * *

It felt like it stopped raining, afterwards.

It was only odd until you remembered that the sun was necessary for the water cycle to start - for the water to evaporate from the ground and ponds, for the trees and plants to use water to even continue breathing. Without the sun, the cycle slowed and stilled, and the rain would hang trapped in strangling humidity.

Without the sun, the humidity wouldn't rise, and the rains wouldn't fall.

Without the rain, Tobirama walked Konoha's street, air thick and choking around him.

The Uchiha were the same, but not, their fire tamped down to sullen coals, because the sun was gone.

Without the sun, there was no more rain, and there wasn't anyone worth trying to see, through the rain.

* * *

The rain felt different, outside of Konoha.

Icy where it had been pleasantly cool.

Flat and bitter when it had been sweet.

Or perhaps that was just the way it always was, and he had seen what he wanted to see, in Konoha, which was warped like trying to look through glass wet from rain.

Without Clan, without Village, there was an echoing emptiness, that could only be drowned out by rain hammering on the rock outside, slapping dust into dull heavy mud.

Nothing to distract from the real dream of peace. Just the incessant drumming of rain, icy needles when he turned his face up to it, stabbing in against his eyes.

Nothing to feel, nothing to sense, because he was done seeing things through someone else's eyes.

Nothing, until suddenly the rain stopped.

No.

The _needles_ stopped, turned into a soft caress of mist, even as he could still hear the heavy militant rush of rain.

He opened his eyes.

"Was it so intolerable, in Konoha?" Tobirama said, quietly, and it was just them, in this soft bubble of mist, surrounded by the torrential rains of Lightning's monthly storms.

Madara exhaled.

He'd never seen Tobirama in the rain.

Pale hair softened into a grey glow by mist, red eyes dark and framed by silver.

"It was," Madara said, and it was hard to summon up anger, in the rain.

He'd never been able to be _angry_ in the rain.

Rain echoed laughter and splashing in the puddles, overdramatic flailing of brothers falling into swollen rivers.

He stepped forward, reaching up.

Tobirama stayed still, looking at him, fine mist brushing against his cheeks like dew, like tears, and when Madara pulled him down to press his mouth against his, the rain tasted sweet.

* * * 

"I'm not going back," Madara said, sitting up.

"I know," Tobirama said, and the knowledge was like ice, on his heart, around his chest, but Madara's features looked softened, away from the harsh heat of the Village, smoothed out by the rain, and when he leaned over, Tobirama closed his eyes.

Madara's lips left a hot brand across his forehead.

"Pray the next time we meet, it's raining," Madara said.

"It could always be," Tobirama said, but he rolled back to his feet, and walked out into the warm, dry air. The sun was out again, brief as it always was, in Lightning.

The sun always came out, in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> trollololol 
> 
> :D 
> 
> Evocates was talking about RAIN and sensing someone in RAIN using RAIN so. 
> 
> uh. 
> 
> :D
> 
> * * *
> 
> Also pffft i will read it tomorrow and edit it properly. I literally wrote 50% of this on the bus. and my phone hates formatting i SWEAR.


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